Dijon Vinaigrette on avocado Red Quinoa Salad

Last week, we watched Duck Dynasty with the hubs.

Puh-leez tell us you’ve seen this show? We're generally not a fan of reality TV (okay, expect for the Bachelor), but this show is flat out hysterical. We're sure it’s scripted, and word on the street is, they are born again Christians using the show to spread the word of the big ol’ JC. Whatever the case may be, you can’t beat the one-liners and witty humor from, Si.

Anyways, during the particular episode we were watching, Wille (the CEO of the duck business) takes his daughter, Sadie, to look at dresses for the homecoming dance. He felt the original dress she chose to wear lacked material to cover the unmentionables. Well, he decides to take her shopping for a new one and as you can imagine, they never find a new dress and she ends up going with the original. Dads, they just don’t get it.

But this got us thinking. We remember homecoming dresses being a pain the tookus. Not only did we despise dress shopping because we have a short torso and wide hips, but those dresses were expensive! Thankfully, our mom knew how to sew dresses because otherwise we would have gone to the dance wearing a burlap sack.

Thank goodness our adolescent dress worry days are behind us. We couldn’t imagine going back to high school and reliving those crazed hormonal days. How we survived being seventeen, we haven’t a clue. But we did, and now, our worrying consists of choosing between yoga pants or leggings, champagne or red wine, salad or quinoa.

Speaking of quinoa, we made this avocado red quinoa salad last week and am completely smitten. Lettuce is so 2003. We are particularly found of the red quinoa because it looks all sorts of fancy like. Throw in a little avocado, goat cheese, and toss it with a lemon garlic vinaigrette. You’ll have yourself a smashing salad that doesn’t require a trip to the mall. Or a girdle.

Print Recipe

Avocado Red Quinoa Salad with Dijon Vinaigrette

Yield: serves 4

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

for the salad:
1 large haas avocado, pitted, chopped
1 cup red quinoa, cooked
1/2 cup goat cheese crumbles
1/2 cup corn kernels, roasted
1/3 silvered almonds, toasted
1/2 cup red onion, diced

for the dressing:
1/4 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
salt and pepper

Directions:

for the salad:
In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients. Toss with Dijon vinaigrette. Serve as a side or main.

for the dressing:
In bowl, whisk all ingredients together. Salt and pepper to taste.

All images and text ©Fisiz for Fisiz